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Chair and Co-Chairs

Nina V. FedoroffAAAS President and 2012 Meeting Chair
Distinguished Visiting Professor, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology; and Evan Pugh Professor, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Fedoroff is a leading geneticist and molecular biologist who has contributed to the development of modern techniques used to study and modify plants. Under the administrations of Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama, she served as Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State and to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. She has also held positions at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi honorary societies. Her memberships also include the Board of Trustees of the Library of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Board of Governors at the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter of the Los Alamos Laboratory.

Dr. Petter brings to his presidency a life-long commitment to education and extensive experience as a university teacher, constitutional scholar, and academic administrator. Ranked by respected national surveys as one of Canada’s top three comprehensive universities for almost 20 years, Simon Fraser University (SFU) is named after a famous explorer and known for its pioneering spirit. Spanning numerous interdisciplinary academic programs and many disciplines in eight faculties, SFU offers more than 100 undergraduate major and joint major programs and more than 45 graduate offerings.

Stephen J. Toope
President and Vice Chancellor
The University of British Columbia

Dr. Toope is the 12th leader of the University of British Columbia (UBC). He also is a scholar specializing in human rights, public international law, and international relations, and holds an academic position at the university as a tenured professor of law. UBC, established in 1908, is one of Canada’s leading research universities and is consistently ranked among the top 30 in the world. UBC holds an international reputation for excellence in advanced research and learning, offering a wide-range of innovative programs in the arts, sciences, medicine, law, commerce, and other faculties.

Dr. Turok works on understanding the universe's very beginnings. Among his many findings, he developed with Stephen Hawking the Hawking-Turok instanton solutions, describing the birth of inflationary universes. In 2003, Turok, who was born in South Africa, founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, a postgraduate center supporting math and science skills. He has led Canada's Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, since 2008 and oversees all research, training, and outreach activities dedicated to exploring the world around us at its most fundamental level.